


Among heart-shaped leaves

by crookedspoon



Series: Exchange Fics [65]
Category: DCU (Comics), Harley Quinn (Cartoon), Harley Quinn (Comics)
Genre: Boredom, Established Relationship, F/F, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21845227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Harley is bored. It gets her into trouble. Naturally.
Relationships: Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel
Series: Exchange Fics [65]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/51139
Comments: 11
Kudos: 195
Collections: Harley Quinn, Yuletide 2019





	Among heart-shaped leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roxie Ann (pluvial_poetry)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvial_poetry/gifts).



i.

Harley rolls onto the sofa. From all sides. Over one arm, then the other. Then the back. She also throws herself onto it from the front, which is less satisfying when no one's already sitting there for you to bodyslam.

She wilts onto the sofa, extremeties dangling off of it. She kicks up her legs, pretending to be walking on the ceiling. She slides off the sofa to land on the floor with a grunt. If there were more space between the sofa and the coffee table, she'd be rolling back and forth there, too – like an oversized carpet sweeper.

She'd used up all her energy earlier parkouring through the house, leaping from wall to wall and over the banisters, and running on her hands. Which is not so say that she wouldn't be up and ready to rumble the _second_ Ivy appeared to put her out of her misery.

She doesn't. Even though Harley keeps peeking at the various openings leading into the living room, shielding her eyes with her hands and peeking again, hoping that this time, _this_ time Ivy is gonna walk or climb through any of them.

She doesn't, and that was to be expected.

Harley blows a strand of hair from her forehead. She's so bored she can't even think of what else to do with her time. And she _never_ runs out of ideas.

Thing is: Ivy promised.

She promised they'd do something fun together again. Because Harley can't remember the last time they did, well, _anything_ together. That in itself is, like, a crime or something. And usually they are the ones doing crime.

It's always "I'm sorry" here, and "I have to go" there, like Harley's only standing in her way, keeping her from doing the things she likes. The things that don't include Harley. Like her science-y stuff down in the lab, or helping kids organize demos and rallies and whatnot. Okay, it ain't like Harley can't come – Pammy would likely be more than thrilled if she did – but Harley can think of more romantic things to be doing together than trudging through the mud and chaining yourself to trees so they won't get bulldozered over. (Now, smashing those bulldozers, that was fun!)

Occasionally, she even liked coming along. Especially if beating up people was involved.

But if she wants to go on a fun heist or – god forbid! – a date with her girlriend, it would be great if fewer kids were around. Ivy doesn't even _like_ other people on a normal day, so Harley finds it weird she'd want to spend more time with them than with Harley, her actual girlfriend.

Ugh, it makes her so mad sometimes. Mostly when she doesn't have anything else to take her mind off of it.

The other thing is that this is what makes Ivy happy, what gives her a purpose. When she comes home, glowing and fulfilled from the day's work, who is Harley to begrudge her that? She herself has put Pammy through a lot of grief with her own projects, but apart from questioning Harley on the wisdom of such undertakings, she never once tried to dissuade Harley once her mind was made up.

So Harley wouldn't either. 

Which doesn't stop her from wanting to do something fun. She jumps up from the sofa and into her sneakers, loose shoestrings dangling because who even has time for knots? (Besides, it's an aesthetic choice.)

Why, if there ain't no girlfriend to drag along for the ride, she'll just have to make do with her lonesome.

ii.

After the hustle and bustle on the streets of Gotham, her abode at the outskirts of town is almost deafeningly silent by comparison. Which is odd. There usually is some sort of commotion inside that would drown out the angry yells still lingering in Ivy's ears, either because Harley has the TV on or the radio, or because she's jumping all through the house, knocking over things in her wake.

Tonight, her plants are breathing drowsily and content in the quiet, and no tremors of Harley are to be felt inside. Her usually so vibrant nature does not stir anything in the house.

That is nothing unusual, but for some reason, Ivy had thought Harley would wait for her to return so that they could go on a date or plan their next caper. Maybe Harley is getting some food. That would suit Ivy just fine. She is starving. Spending the entire day marching sure makes you work up an appetite. All she wanted to do was come home, give her aching feet some rest, and cuddle up to Harley. Thoughts of Harley always get her through a tough day.

Ivy sinks onto the sofa with a relieved sigh. She switches on the local news channel, hoping for some coverage of the protests.

What she sees instead chills her to her bones: Harley, being taken away in cuffs. She's yelling profanities that are bleeped.

 _Oh no, what did you_ do?

Without staying to find out what exactly happened, Ivy picks up her jacket again and rushes out of the house. She has to get to Harley before anyone else does.

iii.

When she arrives at the police station, Harley has already been transferred out. That was too fast. The paperwork cannot even have been filed yet.

Ivy has a strong suspicion of where Harley is being taken. And she's gonna risk getting thrown back in Arkham before she's gonna let anyone user Harley like that again.

iv.

The worst thing about being incarcerated is not, well, being incarcerated – it's not being able to let your loved one know where they're taking you. If you're a quote, "dangerous supervillain," unquote, it's like you have no rights once you're in the system. No phone calls, no nothing.

She can already see Ivy coming home to their empty love nest with no information as to where Harley might have gone. Harley's stomach twists. She hopes that Ivy doesn't think she might have left her because they hadn't managed to go out in a while. That would suck.

Apart from her worries going round and round in circles, the ride is bumpy but uneventful. Harley had been moaning about boredom before - she didn't expect to be doing it again so soon. And she can't even roll around on the floor of her transport because she's cuffed to the wall of it and there are three heavily armed guards sitting across from her who wouldn't hesitate to shoot if she so much as breathed funny. But that's about all they wouldn't hesitate to do. Whoever's in charge of this might as well have positioned mannequins there for all the willingness to engage in her chatter these guys display. Not even her knock knock jokes get the crack of a smile. Talk about a tough crowd.

She sighs. This is going to be a long ride until Louisiana. She hopes there will be layovers for her to stretch her legs before she'll be boxed into her cell again.

And she's been on such good behavior! Smashing up a jewelry store hardly seems like the thing that should send her back to the Suicide Squad, but they did say no new infractions and when did Harley ever listen? Only when it's her favorite song on the radio.

Just then, the ground beneath her lurches. She would have been thrown onto her guards had she not been cuffed to the wall. Her guards spring to action the moment the reinforced doors of the transport pop open – like it was nothing more than a cardboard box.

Harley doesn't see what happens once they jump out to engage with the threat, but she gets a pretty clear picture from the noises they make. They threaten whoever's out there, then scream when their rifles are snapped, and scream again when they're flung aside.

Harley grins. She likes the sound of that. Especially since she's sure to have seen the vegetation move in ways it shouldn't be able to.

"Really, Harley?" Ivy asks as she climbs inside the vehicle. "Couldn't you just have waited for me? We could have made ourselves a nice evening with that hot chocolate you like."

Harley blusters. "But then you wouldn't have come to rescue me. And where would have been the fun in that? I mean, you get to have fun on your rallies all the time! I wanted to have some fun, too. Guess I was feeling left out."

"And so you decided to rob a jewelry store." Ivy gives her a stern look that's only spoiled by her relief – and the glint of naughtiness in her eyes as her plants work open Harley's cuffs. Harley bites her lip; she kinda likes where that thought is going.

"It was more about smashing all those display cases. If I managed to get some shiny trinkets out of there, it was only a nice side effect. I didn't think they'd wrap me up and send me back to Belle Reve."

"Well, good thing I got to you in time."

"My knight in leafy armor," she says, and as soon as her arms are free, she slings them around Ivy, hugging her pretty flower fiercely to her chest. Gosh, she loves this girl. She always has her back. Harley can't describe how lucky she is to have her. "Thanks for coming to get me, Red."

Ivy hugs back and kisses Harley. "You know I always will."

v.

It's late when they make it back home, although time, for them, is of no consequence tonight. They just got each other back. Nothing is going to separate them again.

When Harley imagined a nice evening with her girlfriend, she envisioned them ambling through the Christmas market downtown, swathed in a mile-long scarf that wraps around both their throats, mittened hands clasped or balancing a mug of mulled wine. Or cuddles on the sofa, legs intertwined beneath a fuzzy blanket, as they share marshmellows and cocoa and kisses while a seasonal program is setting the mood.

None of that will be enough tonight. The prospect of almost spending however many months in isolation, only to be unleashed for missions the government needs cannon fodder for, sits restless in her bones.

She needs Ivy tonight.

And it seems like Ivy needs her, too. Her vines wrap securely around Harley's arms and legs, creepers thread themselves through her hair, and flowers unfurl here and there. Unlike other times, Harley doesn't struggle. None of this is meant to immobilize her and she can feel it. It's actually kinda nice.

When she winds her arms around Ivy's shoulders, the resistance is marginal, like brushing past tree branches.

It's an expression of Ivy's care. It's an extension of Ivy's caress. And it makes Harley feel at home.

Their kisses are hot, bordering on feverish, and Harley moans with each and every one that Ivy impresses on her skin like a brand. The world ought to know that they belong together and that nothing is going to separate them again.

Harley herself is hungry, clutching and tugging at Ivy's clothes, needing them gone so she can run her hands along Ivy's skin, uninterrupted. But at the same time, this is good too, this juvenile fumbling, fingers hooking into bra cups, stealing beneath waistbands, and disappearing inside panties. Like in the old days, when they couldn't get enough of each other, or when everything needed to happen quick, before the guards discovered they were loose, not to escape, but to have a moment or two to themselves.

That's what she misses in this new life of theirs. The thrilling adventures for the sake of romance, or the next best thing to it. Now that every freedom is available to them, it seems as though they've become complacent.

That is, until Harley rocked the boat. It hadn't been her intention to get caught, but it _had_ been her intention to change something. 

And if Ivy feels compelled to stay close to Harley at all times from now on, just to keep an eye on her – well, then maybe the scare brought on by Harley's little excursion was worth something after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Koi" by Jennifer Wong.


End file.
